Agreed! I would hate to see TINOL or Injustice bolted any further. They are both adequately protected and you can see exactly what you are signing up for from the boulders opposite.
Go to Buffalo expecting sporting routes, not sport routes. At least you'll remember them afterwards.

just so you know I didn't intentionally retrobolt anything. I checked the 2006 Buffalo guide carefully and thought that the line I put up (which by the way was led on the excellent thin layback flake immediately right of This is not our land) would be far enough away from the other existing lines not to be a problem. From the topo in the guide the established routes crossed over my new line (which I understood to start about 2m right of a line and crossed through it) then carried on up the thin flake directly above (directly below the climber in the photo below).

Subsequent ascents appear to take the easy (right) road and avoid the more sustained technical layback which is how I bolted the route (taking you this way, and what I thought to be a respectable distance away from the established routes to the right). If some bolts need to be moved a bit to the left I'd be open to facilitating that, but the (new) route I believe is almost all new climbing in the manner of the 1st ascent.

The topo in the 2006 Buffalo guide does not show the detail of the line going straight up for the first few meters (where my route also goes) - so apologies for placing a bolt on that by mistake, it wasn't intentional. I thought the guide was correct, but it sounds like it may not include all routes on this wall after reading Kieran's posts? Shame this didn't come to light with the countless cross checks that were done on the accuracy of the 2006 Buffalo guide.

Kieran - maybe try the new route I've put up and see what you reckon? I'm open to feedback and moving bolts if need be to keep the peace. I'd rather avoid a bolt chopping debacle.

Just give me a ring rather than chockstone post it. I don't check this often anymore. Maybe doing a retrospective update showing an accurate topo for the wall would be useful? This could be posted on the VCC website as an update to the 2006 comprehensive guide along with the other new route info? I'd be happy to assist with this if you could e-mail me a marked up photo showing any lines that may have been missed or mis-represented.

The way he's going in the video is Spaceman Spiff which is the same as Dead Heart up until bolt 5.
As I've said previously I'm not worried about the retro-bolting, the climbing on the original routes was a bit spoiled by the suss gear. I know Bill described Spaceman Spiff as well-protected but I disagree with that.
My position is that the description of TDAID should change to acknowledge that it's a left-hand variant of Spacemen Spiff rather than an independent route.
It's a mistake that was easy to make given the mistake in the guide. These things happen even with extensive cross-checking. I've never actually seen the Dreamworld topo from the guide at any time.
I'll try to pass these comments on to Joe directly.

Myself and others (3 parties in total) did TDAID over the weekend and yesterday. Everyone enjoyed it.

Any ethical issues aside, it's a really good climb and I recommend it.

Now - flinging a few felines among the flighty - here's what occurred to me afterwards:

I'd been on that wall twice before and never bothered to do any of the routes to the right of TINOL as the gear (and rock) looked dodgy. Which brings me to point 1, the new route gives people another worthwhile option on what is a nice wall, and hence a good improvement.

Point 2, when I was up there (encouraged by the bolts), I discovered a number of good placements. Some bolting was certainly justified but arguably the new route could have been mixed trad/bolts (with correspondingly higher commitment-factor).

Point 3, while 6 bolts seemed OK on the day, with some careful spacing Joe may have got away with 4 or 5. Conversely, TINOL only gets away with 3 as the moves leading up to each bolt are relatively easy, TDAID was more sustained and 3 bolts (by comparison) would have been scary and/or dangerous.

Point 4 (and my biggest gripe), the new bolts are all carrots. As posted earlier, fixed hangers are the way forward.

Don't take this as a criticism of TDAID. If anything I'm critical of the existing routes, as TDAID is a direct and obvious line, just needed some effort and expense to equip it. Enjoy.

On 14/11/2012 gfdonc wrote:>Don't take this as a criticism of TDAID. If anything I'm critical of>the existing routes, as TDAID is a direct and obvious line, just needed>some effort and expense to equip it. Enjoy.>
Where does does an existing climb become a new route because it's had six bolts added to it? The route is Spaceman Spiff retro-bolted. I'll accept the bolts but not the re-write of history.

On 14/11/2012 gfdonc wrote:>Don't take this as a criticism of TDAID. If anything I'm critical of>the existing routes, as TDAID is a direct and obvious line, just needed>some effort and expense to equip it.
Coming back to this this morning.
Those climbs were a product of their times and criticising them now for not having been bolted is a bit odd. Looking at the photos of the FA of Dead Heart earlier in the thread it's obvious that there was quite a lot of gear. It wasn't brilliant gear but it was there. At the time it was pretty hard to justify bolting it, whereas nowadays I wouldn't hesitate to get out the drill.

On 15/11/2012 kieranl wrote:>On 14/11/2012 gfdonc wrote:>>Don't take this as a criticism of TDAID. If anything I'm critical of>>the existing routes, as TDAID is a direct and obvious line, just needed>>some effort and expense to equip it.>Coming back to this this morning.>Those climbs were a product of their times and criticising them now for>not having been bolted is a bit odd. Looking at the photos of the FA of>Dead Heart earlier in the thread it's obvious that there was quite a lot>of gear. It wasn't brilliant gear but it was there. At the time it was>pretty hard to justify bolting it, whereas nowadays I wouldn't hesitate>to get out the drill.

I don't think Steve's criticising the first ascents, he's already admitted that hand drilling granite isn't much fun, probably more that nothing's been done in the decades in between (and no Kieran I'm not implying it should be done by the FAs).

Thinking about this again, when I climbed using the new bolts I almost climbed passed the second bolt before being told by my belayer and clipped it at my crotch height, which indicates to me the second bolt is too low (admittedly as I was looking up whilst climbing I thought the third bolt was a little high for a second bolt). I probably agree with Steve in that at least with the bolting issue five bolts would have been plenty, four I'd have to re-climb to think about, and it's definitely more sustained than TINOL.

On 14/11/2012 kieranl wrote:>Where does does an existing climb become a new route because it's had>six bolts added to it? The route is Spaceman Spiff retro-bolted. I'll accept>the bolts but not the re-write of history.

I agree - but I didn't get the guidebook out to try and work out where SS goes when I was there. So you may be right but I can't comment. Practically speaking, the responsibility rests with the next guidebook editor to sort it out.

Which makes me wonder, is there any chance of someone updating the Buffalo guide? I went to the launch back in 2006, seems like yesterday, but there's certainly a lot of room for revisions and improvement.

On 15/11/2012 gfdonc wrote:>On 14/11/2012 kieranl wrote:>>Where does does an existing climb become a new route because it's had>>six bolts added to it? The route is Spaceman Spiff retro-bolted. I'll>accept>>the bolts but not the re-write of history.>>I agree - but I didn't get the guidebook out to try and work out where>SS goes when I was there. So you may be right but I can't comment. Practically>speaking, the responsibility rests with the next guidebook editor to sort>it out.

That's it then, ... ~> Joe will have the last word!!!
☻>>Which makes me wonder, is there any chance of someone updating the Buffalo>guide? I went to the launch back in 2006, seems like yesterday, but there's>certainly a lot of room for revisions and improvement.>
I recently got the impression that VCC is about to release Version 1 of the official update?

On 15/11/2012 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:>I recently got the impression that VCC is about to release Version 1 of>the official update?

There have been a number of updates available on the VCC website almost since the guide came out Buffalo Guide Book Updates
including new and updated topos, new routes and corrections. Most of it put together by Joe Goding.

Andrew has been continuing the updates work to produce a new version, I'm sure with gfdonc's input it will be even better. Looking forward to it :-)